HTYLBF » jaeseong

IX

IX. their voice is your favorite sound

Our Skype call has lasted for hours; it's now eight o'clock and miraculously, I feel tired. Inseong's voice has lulled me, and I feel the closest to happy I've been for awhile. I love his voice; I love everything about it. How it gets rough and gravelly when he's been talking for awhile or late at night. How his laughter always sounds natural. How he pronounces words, how he sometimes fumbles with them.

It's like music.

And when he sings, it's beautiful. I want to ask him to sing, but every time I do, he blushes, and I just don't know if my heart can handle that. Besides, he looks so content that I don't want to make him uncomfortable.

He falls silent for a little bit, and we just smile and listen to our breaths. Mine are slightly fast.

"Jaeyoon?" He asks.

"Yeah?"

"I think I have a crush on someone," he says, smiling goofily. For once, I don't mimic him. Because I can't breathe and I'm trying so hard not to show it; not to show how it feels like my entire world has been ripped away from me - he's been ripped away from me. The barbed wire around my heart squeezes so tightly that I don't think blood is pumping anymore; why else would I feel so light-headed?

"They're amazing and perfect and I want to tell them how I feel, but I'm afraid it'll ruin things between us. Or like, make it awkward, or something, you know?"

I'm dying to tell him that I understand, perhaps more so than he realizes. Or maybe I'm just dying; it feels like it.

"Y-Yeah," I say. I can't think of anything else because for once, my brain is empty. All of my false hopes and wrongful fantasies and false claims have been blown away, and I have nothing.

"Plus, it might be weird, because th-they're a boy," he stutters. I look at him finally, out of surprise. He looks nervous and afraid.

"I don't think it's weird at all," I say, impossibly softly because if I say it any louder I might just say I love you. His smile returns and it looks like he's trying to hide it, stealing glances at me as if gauging my reaction. My pale face must not lend him the reaction he wants, because his smile slowly disappears. And it makes me feel even worse, because oh God, I waited too long and I was too scared and I messed up so badly.

"I wanna tell him that he's perfect and that he spends too much inside his own mind, that he should just look around once in awhile."

My tongue tastes bitter. If Inseong's crush has those qualities, why couldn't he just have fallen in love with me? But my heart isn't bitter; because I love him, I want him to be happy. And it hurts to think so, but he'd be happier with someone else.

"You should tell him how you feel tomorrow at school. Let me know how it goes, I'm tired. Goodnight, Inseong," I say, pretending to yawn. Then I end the call.

"I love you," I whisper to the black screen. Then the tears I've already cried over him resurface, pouring down my cheeks like twin waterfalls of missed chances and punctured hearts.

I let myself be pathetic, because tomorrow I have to be strong, in case Inseong really does confess to his crush. In case Inseong really does confess to someone who isn't me.

And I'll have to pretend to be happy when it seems nearly impossible to feel happy again.

ILL JUST PUBLISH THE LAST CHAPTER TOO IM SO SORRY